I’m not sure if NBC will try to block my YouTube, so I am posting two versions of the best part of the Emmy’s.

Eliot Hess Photography

Like most people who visited Ireland before me, I was captivated by the vast extent of the green fields in the countryside, and the dramatic cliffs along the coast lines. They all look like museum paintings. It’s all so peaceful and uncluttered. You begin to wonder if this is how we were all meant to live.

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For $25, you can give a child, or even an adult, an augmented reality T/shirt that reveals what’s going on inside the body. It’s really awesome because very few people have ever seen anything like this before.

It also makes a very powerful gift. All you have to do is point a smartphone, or a tablet at the Virtuali-Tee shirt when it is being worn, and you see the heart and digestive system. It works with a companion app. It was first introduced on Indiegogo.

Yes, it’s a little scary but it’s very educational. Watch the video. You are going to remember this forever.

Scenes from the town of Dingle, and the Dingle Peninsula, which are as far west as you can get in Europe. We could practically see the United States.

Tomorrow is our last day in Ireland. We fly to NY on Tuesday. It was a terrific trip. My eyes are smiling. Landscapes by Eliot Hess.

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To all of you who have aches and pains from typing on a keyboard all day, good news is on the way. Ray Mc Enaney, owner of BeeRaider, came all the way from Ireland to CE Week to introduce a radical new keyboard design that challenges the dominance of the QWERTY standard. The QWERTY keyboard was first introduced in the late 19th century for mechanical typewriters.

Ray says it is time for a change. The new design is considered to be especially relevant for portable devices including smartphones, tablets, netbooks and laptop devices. The first Radial Keyboard is available for all Android users. Other formats are in the works.

The new Radial Keyboard design follows several fundamental guidelines. The aim is to produce a design that would result in:

A keyboard that would be more logical, ergonomic and efficient

A reduction in user familiarization-time

An improvement in a user’s data-entry keying-speed

A reduction in the keyboard’s footprint size

As a point of information, the QWERTY layout was developed in an effort to solve a peculiar typing problem with mechanical typewriters. Whenever a typist began to type too fast, the previously pressed key jammed with the next key pressed and the wrong character was printed. The solution was to lay out the QWERTY keyboard’s alpha-character keys in such a way as to slow down a user’s typing speed. And in case you never noticed, the alpha-characters for spelling the word “TYPEWRITER” are deliberately placed on the top row of the QWERTY keyboard so that salespeople selling typewriters could easily demonstrate their typing proficiency by quickly typing this word to impress potential customers.

Unique selling points for the Radical design according to Ray:

Optimized alpha-character layout based on each character’s frequency of use in the English language. Will achieve greater typing speeds

Logical, more efficient ergonomic layout with a familiar user-friendly bee outline that anyone can readily relate to (especially children)

Testing shows that the keyboard’s alpha-character layout can be easily memorized in as little as 10 to 20 minutes. Becoming a touch-typist is a possibility for everyone. Remember, most people even after years of using QWERTY, still don’t know where the alpha-keys are located and must look at the keyboard in order to find them when typing

Much bigger keys for the weaker less dexterous fingers

Small portable size footprint but still maintaining an acceptable keycap size for its smallest keys.

It solves the problem of small cramped keys on devices such as Netbooks

It can be conveniently operated with one or two hands

It has room for a built-in mouse and cursor-keys or numeric keypad

It looks like fun

It reduces the possibility of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury)

Ray added that the future is about portability, connectivity and wear-ability. ”QWERTY no longer meets the requirements of a modern data-entry keyboard device.”

For some reason every time we travel to Europe we see things that make us feel like they are so ahead of the United States in terms of technology lifestyle. First it was the cell phone, then it was Wi Fi availability and now it’s flat panel TV sets being displayed outdoors at every bar, cafe or restaurant.

We all know that Europe has shown us the way in outdoor dining. Now they have all made provisions to entertain their patrons with big TV events. They actually have brackets on restaurant walls so they can display and remove TV flat panels in a matter of minutes.

Last night Croatia played Ireland in a soccer match for the EuroCup 2012. We were warned ahead of time that Dubrovnik was going to be very festive and very loud.

Croatia beat Ireland 3 to 1 so Dubrovnik was one happy town. The restaurants were filled with people singing, drinking and setting off fireworks. Everyone was focused on the game.

I have attached photos from some of the bars and restaurants so you can see how people gather together to watch TV events outdoors.

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About DigiDame

Lois Whitman-Hess decided to start this blog because she feels it is important for the 55 plus crowd to be aware of an ever changing digital world. The real challenge is just not understanding what these technologies do, but how to use them.